A DEATH IN THE FAMILY
At first glance, it appeared to be a post-apocalyptic landscape.
Standing on blackened ground in the middle of a smoking paddock, Brevet Sergeant Amos Hughes scratched at his prematurely balding head. Around him, shafts of white smoke rose upward in thin spires, emanating from small stumps of wood and dried sheep s**t.
“If I didn’t know better Cliff, I’d find this whole thing pretty symbolic,” he said.
Constable Cliff Rogers, recently seconded from the closest regional city, glanced quizzically at his superior. Symbolic? The situation was pretty weird, to be honest.
Merely a week ago, he had left the boredom of a front desk and now, only a metre away, was the scorched body of a local farmer, charred remnants of clothing melding with melted skin.
“They were burni
